


kiss me, and you will see how important I am

by seraphcelene



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Episode AU: s04ep12 Still, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphcelene/pseuds/seraphcelene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. Written for sing_song_sung for the MAKE A WISH! multi-fandom wish fulfillment ficathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss me, and you will see how important I am

_Don't you dare look out your window, darling,_  
Everything's on fire  
The war outside our door keeps raging on  
\-- Safe and Sound (The Civil War feat. Taylor Swift) 

 

The first time Daryl almost kissed Beth was in the prison. He stood in the doorway of her cell and said Zach's name. That was it, just his name. He looked away when she asked if the boy was dead. He didn't have to reply. Didn't have to confirm anything. The truth was there in the way he wouldn't really say anything, wouldn't even look at her. He didn't want the weight of her sorrow riding his bones.

Daryl's had enough of other people's sorrow. Had enough of his own to carry.

She surprised him, though, Beth, with her pretty blue eyes so wide and surprisingly dry. She told him: _I don't cry anymore_. Said it like it was the most normal thing in the world. As if this wasn't the end of the world and they weren't living in a prison, and the boy she had been holding hands with days earlier wasn't suddenly dead.

And then she was standing too close, looking up at him and asking if he were okay. Daryl could barely look at her. Angled himself away, ready to run, to find someone else to put her back together when she finally fell apart. Then she was wrapped around him. No warning, just her head on his chest and her arms around his waist. She smelled like sunshine and dust, and for a moment Daryl didn't know what to do. He froze, held himself away, hands on Beth's elbows half way between pulling her closer and pushing her away.

She looked up at him, her face so close to his, a breath of space between them. He could see it then, the shutters in her eyes. Everything she had ever wanted, everything she had ever loved, locked up and closed away.

He almost leaned down and kissed her, almost asked her with his mouth on her trembling lips to open up and let it all go. For a moment, he wanted that from her. Her tears and her heartbreak, the pain in her eyes, and all the sorrow she had to give.

***

The second time Daryl almost kissed Beth the world had ended again. One more out of too many times to count. The prison shot to hell, fence gone, tanks in the crops, and the group scattered to god-knew-where. He'd built a fire and they sat under the moon. Daryl was trying to think of what needed to happen next. What they should do, where they should go. How he was supposed to take care of them. Take care of her. Find her sister for her.

And then she started talking about survivors and finding people, and all kinds of impossible things. He could see the way she held herself tight, cracks beneath her skin beginning to widen. Everything that she had shut away rising to the surface. Daryl supposed that your maybe boyfriend dying somewhere you can't see was very different from watching your old man have his head chopped halfway off his neck right in front of you.

Daryl did not say this out loud, but he did think of Merle and how losing a brother and losing a father might be almost like the same thing.

He watched Beth from beneath his lashes. The way she paced on one side of the fire, talking to herself as much as to him. She was exhausted and dirty and holding onto ... what ... he didn't know. Some unknown bit of hope she'd kept tucked away. Something that said, this is not the end.

Daryl sat there and watched her and listened. Held himself real still because there were no words that he could say, even if he were so inclined. Daryl had never been the one with the right things to say. He was good with mean, cutting, ass hole things to say. Things that push people's buttons. Things that start fights. But he did not want to fight with Beth. He thought that holding her would be good. Feeling her cuddled up in his arms, her head on his chest, would be good. He would hold her together and himself too. If he could just touch her, and say all the right things, and kiss the anger from her mouth. Drink the desperation and the hope straight from her lips.

Daryl sat by the fire instead, elbows on his knees, and didn't move. When Beth walked off into the woods, he put out the fire and followed her.

***

Daryl finally kisses Beth in the back of a car. But not in the way you do at a drive-in movie. It's nothing like taking his best girl to see Easy Rider in vintage black and white, Peter Fonda roaring off into the desert forty feet above them. They aren't stretched out in the backseat with his arm around her, holding her close into his side.

They huddle in the trunk of a wreck on the side of the road, Daryl's handkerchief holding the trunk down. Walkers swarm outside and Beth, eyes wide and her hand over her own mouth, is trying not to scream. She's unraveling. Has been since they found the bodies by the train tracks, a small shoe abandoned in the blood.

Daryl lays his crossbow to the side, and reaches for her. Beth startles and Daryl shushes her. Curling his hand around her arm, he coaxes her up to where he is. It's tight and close in the trunk, but she's thin and young and flexible.

"Shh," he whispers into her hair. Presses her into his chest, one hand laced through the silky-soft wreckage of her slipping pony tail.

Beth curls an arm around Daryl's shoulders and tucks her face into his neck. He can feel her trembling, shaking so hard her teeth have begun to chatter. He turns slightly. Away from the gap in the trunk, away from the Walkers shuffling past them on the road, and wraps her up in both arms. Holds her tight as he can, one hand roaming the length of her back.

Daryl doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say. This is fucked up and he can't make it better for her. Can't bring her father back. Can't give her back her sister. So, he holds her instead, and kisses the top of her head. Whispers her name and rubs her back.

Beth pulls back a little, and tilts her face up, then. Looks up at him with her wide blue eyes wet with tears. He kisses her, then, because what else can he do. The world has burned out, and there's just the two of them huddled in the trunk of an old car.

Daryl catches her bottom lip between his teeth and tugs gently. The kiss is soft as daylight, and Beth whimpers as she draws him closer and presses hard into his mouth.

Pulling back, Daryl hushes her again. Touches her cheek. "Sorry," he says. For the kiss, for the car and the walkers outside, for the fire and the prison and Maggie and her father, and the bodies by the side of the road. Sorry for everything and nothing. Sorry for things he has no control over, but would fix for her if he could.

Beth slides her hands into Daryl's hair, strokes the back of his neck. "Don't be," she whispers. "Don't be."

**Author's Note:**

> Summary and prompt courtesy of Richard Siken. Thru TWD 4.12 Still


End file.
